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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Skype for Business Readiness Series (10/15)

Yesterday I joined the tenth session of the Skype for Business Readiness WebCast 
Series and the topic for today were New Meeting and Web Investments Overview.
The Webcast was recorded and is available online from the link above.

A fast content filled presentation by Ali Rohani (@pleazd)!
Meetings, invites, room systems, room PC view, Surface hub, Round Table 100, Office 365 groups and meet now for Office 365 groups were discussed. Also the EnableHighPerformanceP2PAppSharing parameter of the Set-CSClientPolicy cmdlet came up.


Here is the QnA session, 22 questions and answers, enjoy!


New features

In Lync meetings it is very difficult to find a dial pad, any improvement in the new GUI?
Yes, we can find the dial pad by clicking on the call control icon at the bottom of the window.

Will UCWA API allow audio/video features to be accessible from custom in-house Web sites for instance?
There are ongoing plans for that, no exact ETA available now.

Can we have more control in large meetings, such as suppressing the list of attendees only to presenters or leader?
In Large meetings, specifically for 75 attendees and above, the roster will only be visible for Presenters.

Will existing Lync Mobile clients be upgraded from app stores when the Skype for Business mobile client is available?
Correct, there will not be separate apps, the Lync 2010 mobile app will be still there.

Will Skype for Business require Office Web Apps 2016 or could it work with Office Web Apps 2013?
S4B works with Office Web Apps 2013 as well as 2016.

Can we have VIS in hybrid configurations, on premise and Office 365?
VIS cannot join a meeting hosted outside of the on-prem deployment. However, Office 365 and federated clients can join an on-prem meeting with a VTC.


Unchanged features

Can a user join a voice \ video meeting if no Microphone is installed?
The user would only be able to join the IM modality, as long as he/she selects to join the meeting without audio/video.

Using the OneNote roster, will the roster be updated if some attendees are late?
Yes, this is true even with Lync 2013, the OneNote attendee list keeps updating till the meeting is finished.

Do large meetings still require a dedicated pool?
Yes.

Can we still force to use the web app with appending ?sl=1 to the meet URL?
Yes, append ?sl=1 to the meeting URL to see the web app.

Is there a file size limit on the embedded videos in PPTs?
Office Web App server is limited to 50MB for embedded media in PowerPoint. We can edit a Office Web App server setting to increase this limit.

Is the web app still a conference client, not a stand-alone web-based client, as the OCS Web client was?
Correct. The Web App is still a conferencing client only.


Features "missing"

Can we customize meeting invitations (like forcing or suggesting the use of Web App instead of heavy client to ease the attendees experience when joining the meeting)?
No, nothing is new in this area.

What is the plan on using native browsers without add-ons for web participants?
A plug-in is still required across different browsers to provide audio/video.

Is there an easier way in S4B to present video content then to embed it into a PowerPoint and upload the file?
No, no improvements here, desktop sharing as a workaround is the only way right now.

Will Skype users be able to join S4B meetings through the Skype client?
No.

Will the Web App be compatible with browsers on tablets (iOS, Android) or do attendees still have to download the dedicated app?
Yes, they need to use the dedicated apps.

Can we install VIS alongside Lync 2010 servers?
No, VIS must accompany a Skype for Business pool.

Will the S4B Mobile Android client be able to consume the content sharing in a meeting?
No, not available today but coming soon (no ETA.)

Is it possible to do screen sharing with Tandberg endpoints with VIS using BFCP for example?
No, at this time only audio and video are supported with VTCs joining via VIS.

Will the VIS be available in S4B Online?
No, VIS is a On-Premise role only.

If we join a S4B meeting from an iPhone and someone calls, the phone will put your Lync meeting on hold as the call comes through. So, we have to remember to put the iPhone in "Do Not Disturb" mode prior to the meeting manually then remember to turn it off after the meeting. Is there a way for the S4B mobile app to invoke DnD on the iPhone when in a meeting?
No, not as of now, but a great feature request!

4 comments:

  1. Unified Telepresence, you may choose to do the Video conference from your Laptop without going to Conference Room and when multiple participants need to be the part of video conference

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Chakradhar, Not sure I get your question, but yes - you can do video conferencing for multiple participants straight from your desk with Skype for business.

      Delete
  2. So..what exactly was said about EnableHighPerformanceP2PAppSharing ? You mention it in the topic but not in the Q&A? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I looked through the presentation again, but could not find it - it must have been a question about it that I missed, sorry.

    However, I can offer you this nice explanation on what this flag is actually controlling:

    An Update on Desktop Sharing in Lync
    http://blogs.technet.com/b/scottstu/archive/2014/08/20/an-update-on-desktop-sharing-in-lync.aspx

    ReplyDelete